Dying for the Highlife (20 page)

Lou opened his door and walked around his Lexus, inspecting it for damage. When he came back to the driver’s door, the man was holding a knife. “You had your chance to vamoose, see? Now give me your wallet,
maricón
,” he said. Lou stared at the man. He was maybe eighteen years old, his lips curled in a scowl, his body thin, his forearms corded with veins. He held the knife in his fist pointing away from his body, in position for either a backhand or an overhead strike. From his coat pocket, Lou pulled his .38 and flipped open a badge.

“San Jose PD,” he said. “Drop the knife, get on your knees, and put your hands behind your head.”

“
Tu madre es una puta
,” the gangbanger said, but when Lou clicked back the hammer of his revolver, the man let the knife fall to the ground and slowly sank to his knees.

“My mother’s a whore?” Lou said. He secured the man’s wrists behind his back with plastic restraints. “Your mother raised a
puto
. You can tell her I said that.” Then he pulled the punk’s bandana down over his eyes and climbed into his Lexus, leaving the gangbanger kneeling on the side of the street. As he drove away, three
cholos
came running up, shouting obscenities and gesturing wildly. One threw a beer bottle at the Lexus, but it fell short. Lou smiled and headed back toward the freeway.

A
fter failing to find a security outfit in Barstow that would trace Jimmy’s cell phone, Mort began calling investigation agencies in Los Angeles. He spent the entire day in Barstow working the phone, trying to find an investigator he thought would likely sell him the service under the table. It had been easy the first time in Reno, but Southern California was proving to be a different story.

The maid knocked on his door once in the morning and again in the afternoon. Each time Mort told her to come back later. He went through every listing in the phonebook until the sun glared in his hotel-room window and he realized it was already late afternoon, and he hadn’t eaten all day. He rubbed his eyes and went outside to his Toyota. After sitting in the car for a while, he noticed some people watching him, and he pulled away and began driving around town, vaguely wondering if he might get lucky and see the Lamborghini. But he knew there was no chance of that.

As he drove aimlessly, he found himself thinking of his life as a businessman. He’d once had an impeccable ability to solve problems. He had not gotten rich by accident. Had the years in prison robbed him of that skill? No, he was sure it was still there; he just had to work harder, be more creative.

But it hadn’t always been this difficult. Success had come swiftly for Mort after graduating from Harvard and moving to San Jose. His first job was as a financial analyst for a fiber optics company. When they were acquired by a larger corporation three years later, he resigned his post as director of finance, cashed out his considerable stock plan, and spent the next few years working his way up the ladder at a telecommunications firm. Within a couple of years, that company hit tough times, and Mort moved on, landing at a networking company and becoming a vice president. By his mid-thirties, he had accumulated enough money to venture out on his own.

The company Mort founded supplied components in high demand by the exploding personal computing industry. Business boomed, and in five years he amassed a personal fortune of more than $10 million. But competitive forces were taking their toll, as new technologies began rendering his company’s products obsolete. In an effort to develop leading-edge technology, he reinvested the millions he had paid himself, but larger corporations with vast resources had moved into his space, and Mort was forced out of business.

The day after he laid off the last of his employees, Mort leaned on the deck rail extending from his custom-built home in the Cupertino foothills, and looked out over the lights of Silicon Valley. The sun was setting behind the Santa Cruz mountains, and wisps of pink and orange clouds stretched across the twilight sky. Most people would have considered it a lovely evening, but Mort barely noticed. He was too busy deciding on the next direction to focus his energies.

The failure of his company illustrated to Mort how difficult it was to control the random issues that could either allow a business to thrive or drive it down the toilet. The series of setbacks that led to his demise were no more predictable or manageable than the bounce of a roulette ball. His next venture would be one not as subject to the fickle winds that dictated success or failure in the business world.

Fortunately for him, the dotcom craze was gathering steam at a furious pace and presented the perfect opportunity. In two months he launched a website selling a wide variety of computing products. Revenue began to roll in, but profits were thin, and the infrastructure required to execute online sales cost more than Mort anticipated. But lack of profitability did not concern him; he responded by dropping prices even lower. Sales increased dramatically, and Mort crafted a prospectus, complete with an accounting statement that falsified every key financial metric.

Dotcom stocks on the NASDAQ were making instant millionaires out of amateur investors everywhere. Mort reached out to everyone he knew and found plenty of individuals eager to invest some of their easy stock market winnings in founder’s shares of his pre-IPO offering. Soon he had accumulated $15 million in capital, including $250,000 that his brother John invested after Mort reacquainted with him. John Homestead was amazed and impressed his long-lost brother had a Harvard MBA and was a big time player in the Internet arena. When Mort assured him that his company would go public and deliver a return of many multiples to early investors, John refinanced his home and handed Mort a check.

• • •

Barstow faded in a haze of dust as Mort drove out of the Mohave toward Los Angeles. The next night, after a long, futile day of visiting security agencies, he had dinner at a bar advertising a country-western band. He ordered a hamburger and drank a beer and was ready to leave and spend another solitary night at a cheap hotel when the band kicked into their first song. The singer, a plump, blond girl, had a voice with a pleasing drawl to it, and when the man playing the steel guitar took a solo, the slow, beautifully arranged melody stopped every conversation in the joint. Mort drank another beer and momentarily forgot his frustrations. He realized he was relaxed for the first time since his release from prison. A few beers later, a woman with too much make up and tight clothes meant to show off her figure came on to Mort. She was around thirty, with thick hips and curly, brown hair sprayed in place.

“I like your scar,” she said, tracing his cheek with her finger, slurring lazily. She smelled of cigarette smoke.

They went back to his hotel, where she got on her knees and unzipped his pants. He pushed her head away and shoved her onto the bed and held her down with his weight. “Don’t be so rough,” she whined, struggling as he yanked her jeans down. He forced her legs apart and penetrated her anally, thrusting away until she bled and cried. When he let her up, she grabbed her clothes and cast a terrified look at him before fleeing without saying a word. Mort went to bed and slept more peacefully than he had since being becoming a free man.

It took three more days, but he finally found an investigator who took his $400 bribe. That afternoon Mort learned Jimmy’s cell phone was signaling from Harrah’s in South Lake Tahoe. Mort filled the Toyota’s gas tank and headed out to Interstate 5.

H
er hands moist with sweat, Heather Sanderson logged on to the dating website and saw that Jimmy had responded to her initial e-mail. Her stomach fluttered and she felt light-headed. He had taken the bait, and now there would be no turning back. But her nerves steadied when she reminded herself that she and Eric were quickly running out of money. If she backed out now, returning to the strip club would be the only answer. That meant spending her evenings doing lap dances for drunken men who reeked of liquor and treated her like a whore.

She had once accepted $500 from a man for an encounter in the VIP suite, or the “BJ room,” as the girls called it. The other strippers did it on a regular basis, and Heather needed the money. But when the man took his thing out, the realization that she was on the brink of prostitution made Heather freak. She returned his money and quit the club that night.

Eric had been outraged, of course, as he had just lost his own job. He bitched about their lack of money constantly and pushed her to go back to lap dancing, almost as if he was her pimp. She stopped having sex with him unless he insisted, and daydreamed about finding a good, solid man with whom she could live a normal life. With the right man by her side, she would gladly disappear out of Eric’s shitty world—just pack up and leave a note telling him to expect divorce papers in the mail.

She would have left him a month ago if it weren’t for her dwindling bank account. Eric still had a month’s rent money put away, but that was only part of the reason she was hanging around. Though she hated admitting it to herself, she was scared Eric would go into an insane rage if she tried to leave. He would view her rejection as a blow to his manhood, even if he didn’t love her anymore. His ego was so fragile that he saw every setback as an insult to his masculinity, and he’d become increasingly prone to violent outbursts. Heather knew better than to put herself in his line of fire; she really thought he might hurt her. When the time came, though, once she got her hands on Jimmy’s money, she planned to begin her life anew. If Eric came after her, she’d just have to deal with it. Hopefully she could make a clean break, and leave him to rot with his steroids and porno movies.

With nervous fingers, she replied to Jimmy’s invitation to join him in Reno. She didn’t want to appear too eager, so she asked him some questions about his life. When Jimmy turned the subject matter to sex early on, Heather sighed and played along. The slimebag even bragged he was well hung. The mention of his prick made her think of a greasy, wart covered snake. Heather resisted the temptation to tell him to stick it up his ass. Instead, she wrote, “I’m sure I’ll be impressed.” That really got him going, and he started asking all sorts of bright questions, like what her favorite position was, how often she shaved, whether or not she liked oral, and on and on. She finally signed off late in the afternoon, telling him she’d be in touch tomorrow.

Heather didn’t bother asking Eric where he’d been when he came home that evening, six hours after he left for the gym. She could smell the alcohol on him, and he wasn’t demanding food, which meant he probably picked up dinner on his own. Of course, he hadn’t bothered to bring her anything.

“Jimmy Homestead replied back to me,” she said. “He’s invited me to visit him at some place he’s renting in Reno.”

Eric turned away from the TV. “When?”

“Anytime, I suppose. He seems pretty eager.”

He stood up. “Go pack our bags, then. Let’s drive there tomorrow and get this done.”

She hesitated for a long moment, then did as she was told.

W
hen Lou woke the next morning at the Best Western in San Jose, he called his old partner from LAPD. Tommy McCoy was a grizzled veteran who had battled alcoholism for years and was nearing retirement. Lou had sent him a bottle of Glenlivet every Christmas until a few years back, when Tommy said his liver was shot and the doctors ordered him to dry out.

They reminisced for a minute about the old times, then Lou asked him to run the plate numbers he had copied the night before.

“What are ya gonna send me for Christmas this year, another freaking fruit basket?” Tommy said.

“Actually, I just got a new shipment of Cubans.”

“Christ, you’re killin’ me. My physician told me to give up the stogies or I’ll get mouth cancer. If I even take a couple puffs, my wife smells it on me and kicks my ass. Getting old is a bitch.”

“Beats the alternative though, huh?”

“That’s debatable. You know what it’s like to go through life sober?”

“I assume it’s a sobering experience.”

“You’re a funny man. All right, here’s your names—the purple pickup belongs to one Octavio Sanchez, Mexican male, age twenty-two, five-nine, 190. He just spent two years at Elmwood for possession with intent to deal—got popped with a suitcase full of pills. He was also busted for robbery when he was a juvenile. He’s linked to 14 Locos in San Jose, a
Nortenos
affiliate.”

“He’s got the four circles tattooed between his knuckles.”

“If he’s killed someone, he’s never been arrested for it.”

“Hmm. All right, how about the Impala?”

“It’s registered to Hector Escobar, twenty-seven years of age, six-foot, 170. Now, this young man is quite the citizen. You ready to take notes?”

“Go.”

“Escobar was originally with MS-13 in LA. He was a refugee from the civil war in El Salvador and was granted citizenship here when he was fifteen. It says he was a guerilla fighter down there when he was a child. When he was seventeen, he was a suspect in a triple homicide in San Diego that was never solved. Then a year later, he was arrested when a truck crossing the border with twenty keys of heroin was stopped. He wasn’t in the truck, but he was dimed as the brains behind it. The charges against him were dropped after two witnesses were murdered. After that he had a falling out with MS-13 and fled north to San Jose.”

“Any detail on the falling out?”

“Yeah, they suspected he killed the two women who fingered him, who happened to be wives of two MS-13 gangbangers. Apparently MS-13 wasn’t too happy about that.”

“That’s understandable. What’s he been up to in San Jose?”

“He’s the
Mero Mero
of 14 Locos. You know how that works—it doesn’t mean he’s particularly bright, it just means he’s the most violent in the gang.”

“Kind of unusual for a Southern Cal gangbanger to become the leader of a Nor Cal outfit, isn’t it?”

“Sure, the rivalry between the
Nortenos
and the
Surenos
is as intense as ever. Escobar is rumored to have earned his way to the top of 14 Locos by orchestrating the torture and murder of three members of a Vietnamese gang in San Jose.”